EVE General Discussion

Hi. I'm Galileo Black, though I haven't always been, nor will I always be.

I started way back in 2008, and have played off and on ever since. I'm an FC and diplomat (currently unemployed, hence lower-case), and I enjoy PVP in EVE. I'm currently residing in wormholes, partially for the quality of the income, partly for the quality of combat, and perhaps most importantly for the quality of the cooperation within this wormhole corp.

I don't think I've ever stayed in High Sec for any extended amount of time if I have a method of escape. I did mission for a short while, but I prefer not to talk about that. I'm here to talk about PVP, and the philosophy of risk.

Someone once told me the safest activity was over-tanked mining in high sec, which I so quickly responded to with "no, that's staying docked," but I then went on to elaborate with the following:

Try too hard, and someone will come along just trying to prove a point. If you try and minimize your risk in one fashion, then they will exploit another. For example the over-tanked mining barge: they may still suicide gank you, or they may bump you, or even get in their own mining ships and suck your asteroids.

The 'safest' activity, 'safe' meaning 'predictable', is to fly an unfitted ship into hostile nullsec, and do nothing. You know exactly what will happen. There is no risk, only anticipation, and inevitably, you will die.
If you don't try, and you fully expect to lose that ship, you'll see it happening and watch, completely calm; "oh, so it happened."

What makes pvp thrilling, terrifying, and amazing, is the sheer uncertainty of it. The incalculable statistics, randomness of situations become exhilarating. Unpredictable outcomes are PVP. Skewing the odds is called skill. Docking up when you have anything but 99.9% odds is called being a ****. (bring gudfights)

It doesn't necessarily take any of personal value for your ship; what you have to have is an emotional connection to a certain outcome, and that's what eve can generate unlike any other game. You may be in a cheap, cheap ship and simply want nothing more than to win a certain situation, or you may be in a multi-billion isk ship that is the culmination of your EVE career, and you've done everything you can to maximize your odds; but when those sirens go off, you see it all ruined.

Even super-capital pilots are mostly fine with losing some of the most expensive ships in the game; because they get to partake in some of the highest-stakes gambling in the universe. Every fight is "I bet we have a better hand than you."

That's why carebear tears exist. They play the game minimizing risk. They hamper their income by staying in High Sec. When they are ganked, they suffer the same consequence as PVP players, but have recieved none of the reward; none of the excitement. Just loss, in a situation they didn't get the thrill of understanding.

Most of it was copypasted from various comment replies and some reformatted from conversations.

This post was directed towards the new players; new in this context the players who haven't even tried pvp yet, or don't understand the pvp mentality. There is a very real population of people who are afraid to lose ships; regardless of their income, it's just scary to them.
I've talked with them, helped them, flown fleets with them. (occasionally purposely welping fleets with them for the sheer didacticism)



I am elitist, and I never claimed this article was anything but biased to my way of playing the game; ways of which there are many.

But this commentary to the risk and reward of non-pvp players is still a relevant discourse about eve. And if only from a vocal minority, there are people who don't like non-consentual PVP; and this point I think encapsulates why they think that:

True elitism in Eve is anyone who has the ability to cause the deaths of hundreds of ships every single day without leaving a station. When you can do that, you can call yourself elite. An FC in a null sec fight is what elite players call a tool or grunt.